Former CBS News Correspondent Sharyl Attkisson — who claims the government hacked her computer, TV and phone while she reported on the Benghazi terror attack — has released a new video showing what could be evidence of the government taking over her computer.
“That very night, with [White House spokesman Eric] Schultz, [White House Press Secretary Jay] Carney and company freshly steaming over my Benghazi reporting, I’m home doing final research and crafting questions for the next day’s interview with [Thomas] Pickering. Suddenly data in my computer file begins wiping at hyperspeed before my very eyes. Deleted line by line in a split second: it’s gone, gone, gone,” Attkisson writes in her book.
In the book, Stonewalled: My Fight for Truth Against the Forces of Obstruction, Intimidation, and Harassment in Obama’s Washington, Attkisson explains the difficulties she faced while trying to get at the truth of exactly what happened on the night of September 11, 2012 in Benghazi, Libya, where four American diplomats died, including U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens.
Attkisson’s cellphone video appears to show words, sentences and even some paragraphs being deleted on Attkisson’s computer. At one point, Attkisson even records the keyboard and touchpad while trying to prove the changes being made are out of her control.
While the video doesn’t prove the government or any of its agencies were responsible for the hacking, it certainly makes clear Attkisson’s intent on finding out exactly what – or who – was behind the hacking.
Attkisson met with “Number One,” who she describes as a confidential source inside the government, to examine the issue with her computer. “Number One,” Attkisson says, told her what he found was “outrageous.”
Her deep dive into the integrity of her connections with the wired world comes after she receives a tip from one “Jeff” (that’s a pseudonym), a “well-informed acquaintance” who tells Attkisson that she should “watch out.” “The average American would be shocked at the extent to which this administration is conducting surveillance on private citizens. Spying on them,” “Jeff” says.
It’s not just her computers that showed signs of tampering, says Attkisson, who bolted CBS News earlier this year. “[B]y November 2012,” she writes, “there are so many disruptions on my home phone line, I often can’t use it. I call home from my mobile phone and it rings on my end, but not at the house.” More devices on the fritz at Attkisson Central: “My television is misbehaving. It spontaneously jitters, mutes, and freeze-frames,” she writes, noting that the computers, TVs and phone all use Verizon’s FiOS service. At one point, “Jeff” inspects the back of Attkisson’s house and finds a “stray cable” attached to her FiOS box. That cable, he explains, could be used to download data.
Next big moment: Attkisson gets her computer checked out by someone identified as “Number One,” who’s described as a “confidential source inside the government.” A climactic meeting takes place at a McDonald’s outlet at which Attkisson and “Number One” “look around” for possibly suspicious things. Finding nothing, they talk. “First just let me say again I’m shocked. Flabbergasted. All of us are. This is outrageous. Worse than anything Nixon ever did. I wouldn’t have believed something like this could happen in the United States of America.” That’s all coming from “Number One.”
At one point, Attkisson gets a visit from pseudonymous “Terry,” who has “connections to the three-letter agencies.” “Stonewalled” takes it from here:
Terry tells me of a conversation he’d had with my husband back in 2011. He’d noticed a white utility truck parked up the street by a pond. “I didn’t like that. I didn’t like it at all,” he tells me now, shaking his head. . . . “I didn’t like it because I recognized the type of truck and the type of antennae it had. And if you look” — he points up the street — “there’s a direct line of sight from where it was parked to your house.” My husband, who once worked in law enforcement intelligence, had on several occasions in the past couple of years mentioned the presence of nondescript utility trucks parked in our neighborhood — trucks that were working on no known utility projects. Neighbors noticed, too. Ours is a small community filled with people who pay attention to such things. Some of them worked for the three-letter agencies.”
Could those utility trucks have had something to do with the extra cable? Who knows.
“Worse than anything Nixon ever did. I wouldn’t have believed something like this could happen in the United States of America,” the source reportedly said. ”Number One” later described what was found as a “sophisticated entity that used commercial, non-attributable spyware that’s proprietary to a government agency: either the CIA, FBI, the Defense Intelligence Agency, or the National Security Agency (NSA).”
Attkisson later hired an independent computer analyst to whom she assigns the pseudonym “Jerry Patel” in her book.
“Everything Patel has found serves to confirm my January source and analysis. Patel tells me that only a few entities possess these skills. One of them is the U.S. government. I already know this from Number One,” Attkisson writes.
